Abstract

We investigated the switching properties of patterned submicrometer synthetic ferromagnetic (SF) tri-layers. By changing and , the shape anisotropy field, , was changed from 36 to , and the effective materialanisotropy field, , was changed from 28 to over . We found that a hard axis field, , is less effective at reducing the easy axis switching field, , as is increased, with requiring twice the relative magnitude of for the same relative reduction in as a single magnetic layer. In addition, by repeating the basic SF tri-layer structure in circular elements, we demonstrated improved stability against thermal activation by a factor of 2 with no associated increase in .